Kidsmarts

OK, I just thought of something else I really should jot down, before it leaves me forever. (File this in the 5% category for today.)

While getting dressed/irritable this morning, I started to wonder if Miles was actually using his brain. I assume he has quite a nice lobe under all the red hair; I have seen it at work, if not in sight. But then, we arrive at a few simple, repetitive tasks having to do with leaving the house -- hold your cup, find your Silkie, keep your shoes on -- and said brain seems to short-circuit on me. His little mind just seems to shut down, and when reprimanded, he looks at me so blankly I think he must need a system reboot.

I first thought this whole, ugly, blank-face scene might be some boy-gene thing he can't escape -- you know, a pre-adult-male instinct that will later manifest in all sorts of wife-ignoring and single-minded sports-watching.

But then, this evening, as he was talking about growing up and songbirds in the bathroom ("I am getting a be a big boy! But I am not bigger yet. I getting bigger! The bwirds! I hear the bwirds! It not rainin'! The bwirds are singin'! There are so lot of them! They like the wires in our trees.") I realized I am looking at the picture all wrong.

Kids don't use LESS of their minds than grown-ups, they use MORE! They just use their brains on different things.

Miles' brain must never even take a power-nap, what with all the thoughts and memories he connects every day.

"I a big boy!" he says. "But I gettin' bigger." He's right. And I can almost see his head grow....